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Suckage and Despair, Chapter 438

There are glorious highs and lows to writing. The highs come from when you know you’re clicking, a sentence is exactly what you want it to be, you’re in a great rhythm, being productive, you look at a completed piece and think, “yes,” this is worthy of submission. The lows, of course, are when you’re struggling, unsure of clarity, convinced that the work you’ve dedicated hours, weeks, months, years to is absolute crap. Lows also come in the form of letters/emails where the salutation states, “Dear Author,” and continues on to blah blah blah too much boring suckage, move along.

There are a few areas of writing where I’m fairly confident, and ride those highs. Logically, it makes no sense, I shouldn’t have any highs or confidence without validation. But they’re necessary in order to pursue this insane, frustrating road. Some days I wish doing laundry could give me that high. Today is one of those days.

I have an idea, and I want to roll with it.

Pencils (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve begun the new WIP. Here’s my high/low paradox. One of the areas I’m normally confident in is openings. I’m pretty good at hitting that “right” first sentence or three, just enough for a reader to want to know where the fuck I’m going with this. I’ve got, for now, the right opening scene, but my opening sentences aren’t strong enough. Even for manuscripts that rely heavily on atmosphere and characterization, you’ve got to hit the ground running. Maybe especially so. Being a lunatic, this naturally leads me to wonder if it’s time to give away my favorite pencils and have a party with the delete button in my documents section.

It’s Sunday, and I don’t generally write on Sundays. They’re my day for general wallowing. I didn’t write yesterday because of computer issues, so I want to be productive today. Big Senile Dog and Little Incredibly Dumb Dog are looking at me, wondering why it’s 11am and I haven’t fed them yet. If I go into the kitchen to feed them, I’ll be faced with the sink overflowing with pans and dishes from last night’s dinner. So I’ll have to wash them. Once they’re washed, I’ll see how messy the counters are in general. So then I’ll have to clean the counters. Clean counters will remind me of the layer of dust in the living room. I’ll dust, and then realize I should wash/polish the doo dads lining the windowsills. Then I’ll remember the laundry pile, be too tired to sort and bring the laundry downstairs to get involved in laundry wars when I still have to make dinner, and remember I was supposed to be writing. Then I’ll remember why I didn’t write, because what should be a high for me is currently a low. Proof of suckage.

You writers are so complicated. Wish the husband would worry a bit more about the same dirty swim shorts he wears rather than “just that right word” sometimes. I’m getting to the point where I just photograph his messes in progress, and I’d love it if I could do a scratch and sniff photo to convince him of the difference between dirty and, “…but I’ve only wore it for a couple of days.”
On my Way…

My cats have always been pleased when I got in a writing funk. That was when I cleaned their catboxs – as in scoured. I also discovered favorite movies I haven’t watched in a month, or re-discovered by etch-a-sketch. Almost anything is more fun than sitting in front of a screen or flopping a page of bit of writing gone wrong. Blogging works sometimes, and has sometimes got me going on something of a repair/patch/new direction.
Later….

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